


The Problem With Towers

by LuckyDiceKirby



Category: Friends At The Table
Genre: Epistolary, M/M, Marielda Zine, about the same level of angst as you should expect from marielda really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 10:21:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12957174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyDiceKirby/pseuds/LuckyDiceKirby
Summary: During the war, Samot and Samothes write each other letters.





	The Problem With Towers

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Marielda Zine! Shout out to Jay for organizing the project and for everyone who made such amazing stuff! The zine is delicious!!

Samothes,

You should see the view. I know, I know: you have your volcano, don't you? No view beats that. Certainly not the one from my humble tower.

You laughed, the last time I called myself humble. I suppose I'm not. None of us are. Do you think it makes you humble, to be a coward? That's what you are, if you let this happen. If you let the Heat and the Dark take everything. If you stand by and let our father die.

Cowardice is no excuse for complacency, or for fatalism. I think you forget, my dear, but I was once a shadow. I came from Nothing itself. I know what lies beneath the skin of the world; I know the creature always snapping at our heels, itching to devour us all. I know, and I have the will to do something about it. And for that, you call me a fool.

That's the problem with towers, isn't it? They stand, or they fall, alone.

I miss you. I know I shouldn't write. I ought to burn this letter, as I have so many before. But it's been a very long time. And we are not all as strong as you are.

-

Samot,

Sometimes I forget how young you are. 

Don't make that face—you know the one. That furrow in your brow. It's hard to feel youth when you're in the midst of it, I've found. I've had plenty of lectures from our father on the subject. I'm sure you have too.

What does he have to say about all this? I know you must have spoken to him about your plans. But he told you the same thing, didn't he? That your efforts will be fruitless, and all you'll do is lose the things we already have. 

My love, bravery is easy when you give no thought to the consequences. 

-

Samothes,

Time was one of the most difficult things for me to learn, when I was raised up from shadow and given flesh. Before, I cared nothing for time, for transformation, for progress: I cared only for what I could devour, for what I could hoard and take for myself.

Sometimes I think that Samol changed me entirely, when he gave me this form; sometimes I think that he did not change me at all.

How long has it been? I'm not built to measure these sorts of things, and anyway, I suppose we don't make it easy. Reconfiguring our past mistakes; layering them atop one another and burying them with our regrets. If I was ever young, my dear, it was before we started this war. It was before I first imagined a world in which a blade could pierce your heart as anything other than a ghoulish nightmare, keeping me from sleep. 

It was before I had a son and his future to think of. The future that we all must share, whatever the outcome. I wish you would think of it too.

-

Samot,

I do understand. I found an old comb of yours, the other day. Do you remember it? I carved it from cedar wood, back when we first began to court. I wasted days I should have spent on other endeavors thinking of the soft gold of your hair as I worked, coaxing the wood into its proper shape. I came very close to never giving it to you. It seemed such a small and pointless gesture. 

When I spoke of this to Samol, he laughed and laughed at me, and then he told me where I could find you, by the river's edge. He said that a wise man never wavers once he's committed to a course of action, and never in his life had he seen a man more committed than me. 

I think I was young then, too.

As easy as it is to forget how things once were, it is just as easy to forget that they are not that way any longer. I still wake up, now and again, sure that I will find you beside me, your hair in a glorious tangle. But then I do wake, and I remember, and I take up my hammer.

Take up your blade and bare your teeth. I've sent the comb along, too. Keep it or bury it as you will. 

-

Samothes,

I don't know whether to thank you or curse you. Do you think I will come stumbling back to you, acquiesce to your fears, all for the love contained in a single comb? Or do you think the memory of our father's kindness will harden my heart against you, once and for all? You'll get neither. 

The first time we met sword to sword, I felt as though my heart would crawl out of my throat. But since then it has become commonplace, whether our battles are fought with swords or with cavalry or rivers of flame. And why should this correspondence be any different?

It does not feel very different. Your letters sting just as sharply as a sword would, finding a gap in my armor. I think, every time, that it will be the last, just as with every battle, I think that this will finally be the end. And that one way or another, we can stop.

It's a foolish fantasy. We neither of us have the strength to stop. I am beginning to think that it cannot be us who will end it.

Do you remember how excited we used to be, discussing our plans together? Your engineering, which I never fully understood, and my ideas for the university, which you listened to so indulgently. It's a lonely thing, to concoct a plan on one's own. I know that in truth I am not alone; I have my mages and my generals and my wolves. But in your absence, loneliness has taken root between my ribs, a weed that I fear I will never entirely uproot.

I used to believe that one of the joys of this world, this world that was given to me, was that it was always shifting, never stable. I used to believe many things. 

-

Samot,

Even as I write this I know it is a useless task. But I've done many foolish things because of you: because of the curve of your smile, the delightful sharpness of your words, the way that you always looked at me, fire in your eyes. It was as if I was one of your books, an endless one, something you would never finish discovering. An unfinished map which erased itself. A path you would always travel.

You may blame me for much, but don't forget whose choices brought us to this point. Whose stubbornness, whose pride, whose unerring drive.

I never wanted this fight. I wanted only more time. It was you who insisted. 

I should never have let you go. Not like that. Not with our last words to each other so bitter on my tongue.

I know that nothing will come of this, and yet my pen continues to move. So I will just say it, since you are not here to tell me to spit it out. Stop this. Abandon your plans, so long in the making. Don't do this to yourself.

This will be my last letter. Yet I have so much left to say to you. Come home. At least one more time. 

-

Samothes,

You know that I can't. I am only myself, a wolf at heart. I can't change my nature any more than you can change yours.

I suppose I haven't been addressing these letters correctly. I know what they call me now. What is it they call you? God-King? Bringer of Light? Keeper of the Undying Fire? I could never quite keep it straight. To me you have never been any of those things. You were only my Samothes. My first light in this world that is so often empty and dark. 

Do you remember, when Maelgwyn was young—almost as young as he ever was—and he asked you to bring a candle while we sat together? It was dark outside, the wind whipping against the trees.

You thought he was afraid of the dark. You brought us light, and you comforted him.

Our son has never been afraid of anything. Surely you know that. I was the one who was scared. He thought it would make me feel better. Nights are like that, sometimes, even still. When the stars don't shine—when I can feel, in my bones, that there is nothing else out there but us, and Nothing itself—when the only thing for miles around is inky blackness, it's easy to remember what I once was. What I could become again. What we could all become, in time.

I always wanted to ask you, my light—do you know how to stop being afraid? It feels like it will eat me from within. I have faith, and even that is not enough to stop it. Perhaps Nothing was only ever that, this fear given materiality.

The Heat and the Dark will come. It's Maelgwyn who will stand against it. Not either of us, even after this endless war. Perhaps it's for the best.

I hope you can forgive him. He adores you, in his way. He has your stubbornness, and mine.

It's almost High Sun Day. I don't think I'll be able to make it this year. Drink something for me, won't you? You never did know how to relax. 

Whatever happens, I'll pour a glass and watch the sun and think of you. I suppose we'll always have that. Even in your absence, the sun's warmth has always found me. I must believe that whatever happens to you, it always will.

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me on tumblr or twitter as luckydicekirby! I'm very sad about samsam at all times, thanks


End file.
